You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalist at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Jordan Klapper.

Welcome to The Daily Show. Jordan Klapper. We got so much to talk about Kamala Harris wins her first debate. Donald Trump shits the debate bed, and JD Vance shits the litter box. So let's get right into it with our continuing coverage of Indecision 2024. Last night, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took to the debate to make their cases to Taylor Allison Swift. And whoever else happened to be watching. It was not a good night for Trump. In terms of personal tragedies for him, I'd put it somewhere between losing the 2020 election and the day Fox News started letting female anchors wear pants. Somewhere in there. And there was one moment that was probably the best example of just how badly Trump did at the debate.

In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.

Sir, the question was, state your name. Now, if you were one of the many people last night wondering why Trump was shouting, They're eating the dogs. Let Let me explain. It started with a random Facebook post where someone accused a Haitian immigrant of stealing and eating their neighbor's daughter's friend's cat. If there's one thing we know about Facebook posts, it's that they're always rigorously fact-checked. But as with any unfounded rumor on Facebook, obviously this got picked up by the right wing establishment and spread across the Internet. Even JD Vance promoted it while simultaneously acknowledging it was completely unfounded. You might say he jumped in the misinformation pool but kept his shirt on. Which brings us to last night. If there's one thing we know about a racist conspiracy theory, it's that Donald Trump's brain will swallow it whole like a hungry immigrant at Petco. And that's how a random Facebook post turned into Donald Trump's campaign slogan, They're eating cats and dogs. So It seemed like Trump had a rough performance. But you know what? That's just my opinion. You could also tell that Donald Trump was the loser because he did all the things losers do when they lose.

Number one, complaining about the refs.

I thought they were very unfair, the moderators. Everybody did. I thought it was terrible from the standpoint of ABC. It was three to one. It was a rigged deal, as I assumed it would be, because when you looked at the fact that they were correcting everything and not correcting with her.

Yeah, man. They were correcting you because of the things you were saying. That's barely fact-checking. The moderators were reacting like normal human beings react when you hear the craziest shit you've ever heard. If you were at a cocktail party and your friend said, trans immigrants are eating dogs in Ohio, you would say, What the you're talking about, stew? No, they aren't. You wouldn't be like, Okay, thank you for that. Let's move on to foreign policy. You know what? It wasn't just blaming the reps. Another way you know Trump lost is that he was accusing his opponent of cheating.

They had a rig show. It somebody that maybe even had the answers. I mean, I'll be honest. I watched her talk, and I said, You know, she seems awfully familiar with the questions.

Okay. You think she was cheating Does she seem familiar with the questions? It's a presidential debate. They always ask the same questions. It's like being suspicious that someone knows all the words to take me out to the ball game. How will you fix the economy? What's your stance on abortion? Do you promise not to overthrow the government? Standard boilerplate debate questions. Meanwhile, Trump seemed awfully familiar with the questions that nobody asked, like, Who's eating all the cats in Springfield, Ohio? But maybe the best way you know Trump lost the debate is that he repeatedly insisted he won.

I think it was the best debate I've ever, personally, that I've had, we're getting polls that show 92 to 6, 88 to 11. Every single poll last night had me winning like 90 to 10. We had a C-Span, At one point, was it 80 to 20? We looked at one poll, it was 92 to seven. We had a 92% rating in one poll. We had an 86% rating in another. We had 77%, 90%, 60%, 72%, 71%, and 89%.

Wow. Those certainly were numbers. Is this what Trump did during his debate prep? Memorize all the numbers between 70 and 98? In fact, every moment since the debate ended last night, Trump has been spinning and spinning and spinning. I mean, just listen to his response after Taylor Swift announced she is endorsing Kamala Harris.

Well, I actually like Mrs. I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better, if you want to know the truth. She's a big Trump fan. I was not a Taylor Swift fan.

Really? Really, Donald, you prefer Brittany Mahomes? What's your top five Brittany Mahomes songs? Is this really his angle? Well, I don't care, Taylor, because I like your boyfriend's coworker's wife better. This has just been a day of pathetic, desperate, spinning. I mean, imagine if Donald Trump spent all that energy on doing things correctly instead of pretending he did things correctly. I mean, if he had worked harder preparing for the debate, maybe he wouldn't have had to pretend he won the debate. If he had worked harder to win in 2020, maybe he wouldn't have to pretend the election was rigged. And if he had worked harder on January sixth, maybe he could have overthrown the government and wouldn't have to be debating in the first place. It's called work ethics, Donald. Come on. Of course, Donald Trump wasn't the only one spinning his performance last night. His before mentioned vice President, JD Vance, was asked about why Donald Trump ranted about illegal immigrants eating pets, and his response was illuminating.

Why push something that's not true? Well, first of all, city officials have not said it's not true. They said they don't have all the evidence. They said they have no evidence. We've heard from a number of constituents on the ground, Kaitlyn, who both first-hand and second-hand reports saying this stuff is happening. So they very clearly, meaning the people on the ground dealing with this, think that it is happening. And I think that it's important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this stuff for themselves.

Okay, I'm sorry. This is not my main takeaway from the story, but someone's cat went missing, so they called their senator? I mean, were they like, Should I go right to the President of the United States? Or should I start with my senator? You got to update I'll take those emergency numbers on your fridge, Barry. Come on. But perhaps JD Vance has a point. If a story bubbles up from the right wing sewer, it is our obligation, name, our duty in the mainstream media to investigate it no matter the cost. And that is exactly what we've done here at The Daily Show. I sent Roni Chang undercover to Springfield to find out if illegal migrants are really gobbling up our small town cats. Let's go live to him now. Roni. Roni. Roni. Roni, how is the investigation going?

Well, Jordan, I'm in Ohio in a f cat costume trying to get migrants to eat me, so it's not great. Also, it's not working, okay? I even tenderized myself with a jerk rub and went around saying, Miaou, miaou, I'm so tasty. Nothing.

Okay, yeah. Well, obviously, you're not going to fool anyone with a half-ass miaou like that. You need to commit to the role, Roni.

Hey, don't tell me how to commit, all right? How many Marvel movies are you in? Trust me. Trust me, okay? I've tried Everything. I shit in a box. I batter around some young. I played with a dead mouse I found. Nothing.

Have you been licking your butt hole?

I can't reach my butt hole.

Did you try to reach your butt hole?

Yes, I tried to reach my butt hole, okay? I can't. It's impossible, which I already knew for reasons I don't want to discuss.

Okay, well, then what are we going to do about these allegations?

I don't know, Jordan. How about we ignore them? Good journalism doesn't mean we have to take every insane racist conspiracy theory at face value, okay? Let's just shit on it and move on like I did in a box earlier.

Wow. You know what, Rodney? Maybe you're right. I appreciate you taking journalistic principles so seriously. You're really following in the footsteps of Edward R. Miaouro. Roddy, did you hear what I said? I said Edward R. Yeah, I heard what you said, right? Okay.

Wish you were dead, all right? Anyway, Wait, someone's coming. Someone's coming. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. They're getting off their car. They're coming for me. They're coming for me. Roddy.

Hey, Roddy. Roddy, are you there? Roddy, are you there? Hello, Roddy.

Yes, I'm here.

Oh, thank God. All right. What happened? Were you kidnapped by a hungry immigrant?

No, I think I was adopted by a childless cat lady.

All right. Okay. Hang tight. Roni, hang tight. We're sending someone to bring you back.

Oh, actually, you know what? Hold off. She's in the kitchen cooking me some organic chicken right now. I want to see how this plays out. Oh, awesome. I love these things.

Okay, have fun running. Roni Chang, everyone. When we come back, we'll find out how the city of Philadelphia is taking your money so don't go away. Welcome back to The Daily Show. Last night's debate took place in Philadelphia, a critical city in the upcoming election. But if you're a resident who plans to vote there, you might want to be careful where you park your car on the way to the voting booth. Michael Costa has more.

City parking. It's a hell for those who choose to live in urban areas. But in Philadelphia, the eating shit in public capital of America, if you're not keeping up with parking rules, they'll move your car for you. Isn't that great? It's called courtesy towing, and Philadelphiaans love it.

My car was moved from a legal parking spot to a illegal parking spot as what they call a courtesy tow. I have a parking permit for the street parking, and there was in a town So there was a temporary no parking sign put up within a couple of days, and I was out of town. So it was then towed to an illegal parking spot by the city, and then it was towed down to the PPA impound lot, which is where we are, and then moved to the auction lot because it was about to be auctioned off.

So you parked in a legal spot with a legal permit. Correct. And eventually, your car was in the impound lot. Correct. Did you park shitty? Just be honest. No. Gary, forget the cameras.

I am a very legal parker.

Be very careful where you park your car. You're going to get ticketed.

Let me just side with big government for a sec. I hear a lot of people bitching about the tow truck, man. I've been towed once or twice.

But I know I parked it legally. There's courtesy towing, which is for weather, for events, and typically, they're supposed to put up no parking signs. It happened less than 12 hours after I had parked there. When I got back to my car, it wasn't there. I'd called the PPA a couple of times. Not helpful. Finally, just called the police who then was able to tell me, Based on your license plate, it's at 15th in Washington.

This is called a courtesy tow? Yeah. Well, that's nice. That's nice, no?

I mean, it would be. It would be if they parked my car legally. We're walking up to 15th in Washington. There's my car, and it's parked in the median, in the turn lane. Which-weird. Yeah. See the four tickets on it? Oh, there's four tickets on it. Four tickets on it. They're Friday.

They courtesy towed your car to a different location to an illegal spot, and then you start to acquire tickets from that illegal spot. The one common factor in these stories, the PPA, or Philadelphia Parking Authority. But why was this beloved governmental agency courtesy towing its residence in the first place?

It's very profitable, and everybody knows that. I waited about an hour and a half to get in and then had to pay $964. What? Yeah. They have a tow fee, the ticket fees, and then the impound lot daily storage fee. And it's a money-making machine.

All right, how bad could a couple of extra fines be, especially since the PPA helps fund cash-trapped schools in Philly? Well, it turns out they haven't been honoring their agreement with the city, withholding close to $78 million because of alleged financial mismanagement.

The money is not going to the schools.

One group holding the Parking Authority accountable is the Pay Up PPA Coalition. I met with Organizer Rochelle Nicole Solomon in one of Philadelphia's historic green spaces.

The mission of Pay Up PPA is to have the Philadelphia Parking Authority be accountable, be transparent, and to have a specific amount of reoccurring funding every year to the School district of Philadelphia.

So in Philadelphia, the parking authorities' leftover revenue goes to the education system?

Yes. Yes. 45 million a year, estimate, to the School district of Philadelphia from the Orange Street parking. But the money is not going to the schools, which means one of two things, or maybe both. One, they were lying, or two, that the leadership, both the director and the board, are grossly incompetent.

In your opinion, is getting ticketed or towed by the PPA a right of passage for Philadelphia residents?

I don't know about a right of passage, but probably everybody can check that off their list. I mean, I've been towed. My husband's been towed. We all get tickets. I mean, it's part of life.

There goes one right there. That's one of our guys right now getting a ticket as we speak. Good luck trying to fight that.

Anyway, back to the interview.

What can Philadelphia do to combat some of the corruption of the PPA other than throw batteries or riot on Broad Street?

I think there's some room in between those two things, right? I think they need to ask questions. Show up at the Parking Authority board meeting and say, Pay up, PPA.

It was time for the PPA to pay up. So I did what any good citizen would. I went into the PPA unsolicited with a camera and microphone. How are you doing? You probably know who I am, but I'm Michael Kosta with The Daily Joe, and I just wanted to talk to somebody on camera about the PPA's courtesy tow policy.

So we're going to have to ask you to step back over. Okay. And we can't have this interview.

Okay. So I'm being asked to leave? Yeah. Okay. But do you mind if I use your toilet? I got a bus about to leave the station.

Use your property.

Okay. Thank you. Well, I just want to talk to you, but I got courtesy towed out of there. So there you have it, Philadelphiaans. The PPA is screwing you and your public school over. The good news is I'm a New Yorker. I don't have to give a shit about any of this. Son of a bitch.

What the fuck is this?

175 bucks. Fuck this city and fuck the PPA.

Thank you, Michael. When we come back, John Halliman will be joining me on the show. Don't go away. Welcome back to The Daily Show. My guest tonight is a best-selling author, Chief Political Columnist and Partner at Talk, and host The Impolitic podcast. Please welcome John Heilman. I knew there would be some Wu-Tang apparel when you walked out here.

Well, after you sang the praises of Wu-Tang at your Chicago Convention show- You saw that? Yeah, of course I did. You talked about how that era, 1991, 1995, four best years in American history. I You agreed, right? I agreed. I'm a little disappointed. They promised me Desi tonight.

They did promise you Desi.

That's why I'm here. I mean, I love you, but I was like, I wanted to get the best subjohn host.

First of all, I don't consider myself a subjohn host. I am the host of the God damn Daily Show. You will respect that. You should understand that all of the best groups have a lot of members. Odb, Jizzarizza, Master killer, Inspecdek. These are groups, plans, if you will.

I can't I can't believe some of the ones you're leaving out there, like Meth, who's going to come over here and beat the shit out of you for that. But here's how you know that I actually knew it was you. After all that discussion that we had on my podcast last week about the food of Chicago.

Yes, I was slumming it and I did your podcast. He did? Yes.

And he was great. You got to listen to it in Politic with John Hyman. Here's the thing.

Good promo.

So you didn't come to Philly?

No, I didn't.

You know what they make in Philly? What do they make? Cheesesteaks. Cheesesteaks, famously. There's two of them. Two famous cheesesteak makers.

Yes, I've been to one of them. Which one? Genos, I think. Well, we got...

Now, these were purchased after... They're to open 24 hours. These were purchased in the middle, like about 3:00 AM.

It's Pats and Genos, right?

Pats and Genos right next to each other. Genos Steaks, right?

Wait, you're bringing me old meat?

Well, no, no. These were transported from Philadelphia as if they were severed limbs, okay? On ice, very well. It's really hygienic. Don't worry. It's going to be great. Cold cheese with there's nothing better. There's nothing better. This is Pat's Kingdom Steaks. Now, these places have been operating in Philadelphia for like 80 years. They're a block away from each other. People will fight you in Philly over which one of these is better. They're indistinguishable. If you take one of these pieces of steak and cover it in cheese with, which is what you're supposed to do, and onions, you can't tell the difference. You don't have to eat it now because I know how it's eating on the air is not cool. But I wanted to make sure that you had an offering.

What do you think these people want to see, John? This is the smartest audience on television. Eat it.

Let's do it.

We're going to do it. I tell you what, we're going to do it. This is all going to live on the web now because this interview has already gone 17 minutes into... Okay, so I'm starting with my Genos. Okay, I'm going to try this. As I'm trying this, I want you to encapsulate as if we are eating in Philadelphia, your experience last night at the debate in Philadelphia.

First things first. She kicked his ass. Now, I heard John last night talking about how this is a matter of opinion. People will claim various things. Here's the fundamental truth about campaigns. Both sides have either directly under their auspices or in superpacks, they do this thing called dial groups. They get undecided voters in battleground states to watch the debate in real-time. You've seen these things where they crank the dial. Do they approve? Do they disapprove? That's all they're looking at is what the dials are showing them. Later, they will look at polling, but on that night-Internally, they're getting that essentially in real-time based on the answers that they're having. At the end of the night, they know two things. Did their candidate perform well with the dial groups? The dial groups are meant to be a representative of groups they're trying to reach and bring over onto their side. They will know what worked, what are the things that worked best. By the end of the night, if you know someone at a high level of the campaign, or either campaign, or both campaign says, I might, you will know by the end of the night, what the group said, what the dial said, basically, is what they'll say.

I would say this is a rare moment where the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign were in agreement. The dial said that she kicked his ass. Really?

The Trump campaign was aware of that because I don't know if you saw, Donald Trump had numbers. I think one of them was 90, one of them was 74. I think there was a pie squared in there. He had numbers.

I thought that was the funniest part when he came into the spin room because Trump is full of shit most of the time. He makes up all kinds of things. But that was one of those things that was the most made up thing on Earth. Of course, like the story about how Albert in America wanted Roe v. Wade to go away, which we'll come back to, it was easily verifiable because, of course, all the networks were to put up their numbers. Cnn was broadcasting their numbers half an hour later and showing that, in fact, all their Insta polls also showed that Harris had won. I'll tell you the other thing is that what she did best on were all the abortion-related questions, all the stuff about women's reproductive rights. Those were the things. That stretch, she had about two and a half minutes answer when she really started to come on strong in the debate State, and she was very emotional, very direct, very powerful. The dial groups loved that. That was off the charts, even in the... I mean, in the droid. These are all undecided voters. So they're essentially different groups that the campaigns are monitoring, but there are no Trump fans in these groups.

And there's no Harris fans. These are ostensibly people who haven't made up their mind.

They're undecided. They're psychotic and sane people who I can't wrap my head around. But there was some poll that around 30% of people wanted to know more from Kamala Harris. What did people How did you actually learn about Kamala Harris?

Well, I'll tell you what, I think there's two ways to look at that. When you think about this from the Harris's strategic standpoint, one thing was that was the New York Times-Ciena poll. It basically said there was a lot of people who still don't feel like they know very much about her and they wanted to know more. That was one thing that you could have tried to aim to do, tell your story more, try to explain some of your changes on positions, all that stuff. But if you look back at the history of presidential debates, the way that they are often remembered as who won them and who lost them is on one metric and one metric alone, which is who commands the stage, who commanded the sphere of battle. For a candidate who's in their first general election presidential debate, Bill Clinton and others would say, Americans are watching to see whether they can this person as the Commander-in-Chief, as President of the United States. Can they go toe-to-to with an adversary in the moment? Do they command the debate? Is the image of command left in people? It's a plausibility test. I just think there's no one with eyes in their head who didn't think that Kamala Harris was the one who commanded the stage last night.

That's why between the dial groups and just the plain obvious thing that Trump as maniacal, irrational, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, he failing as he is at this moment. Was she perfect? No. But she was strong. I think that she came across as strong, and she decided to play that prosecutor role, and she played it really well. She was incredibly, as you said, incredibly well-prepared. She kept coming back to her themes that she wanted to hit. I can't, as a debate, quad debate, which is not how are people going to vote. Eight weeks from now is when the election day is. These people are still undecided. Most of you are not waking up today going, Okay, I've decided.

She looked presidential. Yes.

As you said off camera, I think, to these fine people out here, you're dealing with a lunatic. You're dealing with a pathologically lying, insurrection-fermenting, democracy-degrading, defiling asshole. And so...

Allegedly.

So It's a tough challenge. Imagine what that... I have a challenge involved in doing that and holding your composure. I'll say, because no one did this better than John did on the night of the first debate.

I get it. You liked John Stuart.

He did look at you. He's like, You're a comedy hero.

I like John Stuart as well. Okay, yes.

But he put up those pictures of Biden slackjawn. It was a four box. He's like, When they did the debate prep, did nobody show him in these pictures because these don't look great. She was so aware of the split screen and how the split screen would work that I feel like it was like a bizarre world Biden debate in a lot of ways last night. Because the split screen with Harris was doing to Trump what the split screen with Biden did to Biden. Biden suffered in that split screen with Trump, and Trump suffers in that split screen with her. He looked angry almost throughout, watching without the sound on.

I don't disagree, and I do think Kamala looked more than a depth. She did look presidential. I think she was masterful in many ways of both seeming above the fray, but also poking him as well. But this audience is different. I think people don't see Donald I don't believe people saw that and saw Donald Trump for the first time as a diminished man. No. He looked angry, but angry has been something that he's been selling the American public, and there's that 45% who love that. Do you actually think that that diminished- I don't think you're going to take away Trump voters from Trump.

I think what she's trying to get across, I think now, is that he is not just the old candidate in the race now. The generational contrast. She wants to be changed. She wants to be younger, and she is in some ways, implicitly, pushing the argument that took down Biden, which is that... I mean, Donald Trump's mental acuity, I say this not in just a trashing him way, which I'm happy to do sometimes.

I think about a minute and a half ago.

But he just But he's getting worse. I mean, he's never been wholly linear. Let's put it that way, right? But if you go back to 2016, when he really won the election against Clinton, in those last 10 or 12 days of the election, they managed to get him to talk about trade, the border wall, China. He was actually a pretty disciplined candidate for the crucial 10 or 12 days of the election. Now, there are a lot of Republicans who look at, Well, she has this momentum. What's going to change between now and election day that will halt her momentum? One thing is like some external event. Vladimir Putin does something, China does something, some cyber war, a Martian invasion that someone has to repel on the White House lawn. Another is, Harris fucked up. She It comes up somehow, She didn't do that last night. We all agree about that. The third thing which Republicans all are hoping for and praying for, and that what they've been trying to beg Trump to do is be a disciplined, focused, rigorous, consistent candidate. Make these arguments. That's her begging him to do it with this idea in mind that he can pull it together in these last eight weeks and become this thing that occasionally he was in the past.

I just think if you watched that debate last night, there's none of that there. There's none of that When he started talking about the dogs and cats and the pets being killed, do you know how that question started? I don't remember. It started with David Muir asking him about immigration.

Was it?

Yeah. Now, in the Biden debate, go back to my Bizzarro world thing, the Biden debate, rightly, Biden He got a question about abortion, his strength, and turned it into an immigration question. That's when you knew he had really lost it. You're like, What are you doing? You're talking about immigration. They set you up. They put it on the T. Abortion. Talk about Roe v Wade. Last night, Trump got asked about immigration. Here's the issue he wants to talk about.

That's a sweet spot.

But Harris had baited him on the crowd-size thing. He turned away from immigration and then proceeded to discuss the size of his crowds, World War III was coming, the size of his crowds again, and then the apparent, obviously completely made up Holocaust of the cats, dogs, and pets in Ohio. Bear in mind that in the last 100 years, an occupant to the White House, every single one of them has had a pet, except for Donald Trump, because he's a sociopath. Maybe he doesn't He likes to snack at night.

The guy cares less about dogs and cats than any occupant of the White House ever.

That includes other bonafide sociopaths.

It is such an example, too. You give Donald Trump enough time. He's not prepped for anything. He's always grasping at straws. Frankly, he's only got a handful of straws. He's got his immigration as well. He's got a couple of things he's going to bang that drum, and whatever he read on the internet that day. And that's what you see getting amplified. He brings the internet to life.

You saw when he arrived in Philly, Laura Lou Loomer, who's literally the craziest person on the right, crazier than anybody in the history of the right.

That's a hell of a crown to wear. I got to tell you.

When she got off the plane, you knew. You were like, he's going to be talking about the cat carnage, the nonexistent cat carnage in Ohio. I I will say this again to the question of, can he be a disciplined candidate? What's the other thing he was supposed to do last night? Tie Kamala Harris to Joe Biden's economic record. The first time he mentioned it was at the 1 hour and 24 minute mark of a 1 hour and 30 minute debate. The way he mentioned it was to say, She is Joe Biden. She is Joe Biden. Again, back to the split screen, Kamala Harris is like, I don't really think I'm Joe Biden. Can people see that I'm not Joe He did it. He finally decided to do what he did so badly that she could just knock it away with a laugh.

Well, she got asked that question right off the bat, and she said, I'm going to talk about my history.

Yeah, totally. You heard JD Vance afterwards in the spin room where I was talking about how Trump made these points in his closing statement. I'm like, Now, that's a strong candidate, the one who remembers, Hey, it's my closing statement. I might want to say that thing about Biden at the end here.

I guess my question, do people around him, one, do they really have an expectation of changing engaging Donald Trump in that way? Two, do they have a sense of what truly is happening? I hear the moment where Donald Trump comes out and he has those bullshit numbers. Of course, he's always pulling out numbers that make the most sense to him. But are they giving him numbers that make him comfortable in that moment? What is their awareness? The Trump circle, what is their awareness of what is happening? It's not a monolith.

Trump has now brought Cory Lewandowski back into the fold. Cory Lewandowski is the ultimate let Trump be Trump candidate. Cory was He was exiled. Now he's back. His job is to do things that make Trump happy so that he will not be exiled again. The professionals in that group, people like Chris Lassivita, the campaign manager, and Susie Wiles, the co-campaign manager, you would say whatever you want about them and their values or whatever in working for Trump. But there are professional people who've run important campaigns before, and they are the ones begging Donald Trump to please talk about how she's a San Francisco liberal, talk about how she's a flip flopper, talk about how she's a phony, try to make her explain how she went from being in favor of all these liberal positions to being against them. They are, I think, constantly must live in hope because if they don't live in the hope that they can change them in some way, the world is very cold and dark. If you think that this Donald Trump is going to be the Donald Trump you're going to get for the next 55 days before election day, because that's a Donald Trump.

I'm not saying you can't win, Jordan, because it's going to be really, really close. But man, I think every Republican strategist in the country looks and says, If this guy ran a standard Republican campaign against her, there's a playbook, and he would appreciably increase his odds of winning if he were to be able to remotely execute that. We have no sign that he can. There's this also the thing, we were talking about this a little bit before. I've been in a lot of spin rooms in my life.

I'm very impressed. Pretty cool room to be in. You get to hang out with a Scaramucci now and then. You get to be with the Munch.

Here's the thing about this. People go, Oh, are you in there? Somebody wrote to me last night, a friend who said, Were you in the room where it happens? I'm like, No, the press is never in the room where it happens. We don't sit in the debate hall. We sit in a room next to the room where it happens, and we all get to sit together in a giant room watching it on TV just like you at home. And the only advantage is that when it's over, a bunch of professional liars come out and we get to be lied to to our face.

But don't you think there's something- And I never miss it. I never miss it. But it feels like we talked about this in the beginning of our show. It feels like Trump thinks that is the room where it happens. He doesn't prep for a debate to articulate a vision of the to America. He preps for a time to lick his wounds and bullshit the press with more cameras. That's where all his energy goes. You got the show, sadly. People shouldn't be performing for you. That's a nightmare. 100%. Trump should be performing for the people at home, but he doesn't see it that way.

I think I may have told you the story for a little while in 2015, 2016.

Don't retell me a story, for God's sakes.

Well, these people I've heard. Trump liked me for a little while. He liked you? Is that right? I wrote a tweet about him when he first entered the race in 2015. I said, The Republican is getting more racist, socialist, and xenophobic. I think Donald Trump has a chant to win. I saw him and had a face-to-face interview with him the next day, and he said... After he had tweeted, @jhile has finally started to understand me. I went and did this interview with him and I said, I thought you might be pissed. And he was like, no. At that moment, there were people who didn't think he could win and people who thought he could win. Binary. If you were on the side of people who took him seriously, he didn't care why. You could have said, The whole country is now members of the Ku Klux Klan. Donald Trump is going to shoe in. He would have been like, Thank you for understanding. He didn't care. He just didn't want to be... He didn't like the people who were saying, He has no chance. He's a buffoon. He's doing this as a branding exercise. I was on the other side.

For a little while, whenever I would see him, he would say, Heilman, you're starting to understand me. We're both German. That always freaking me out. Because I'm not really German in any meaningful way. I have a German from the German descent, but I'm not like... I didn't grow up in Munich. That's not my...

But he saw something in it.

Yes. It was always like a lot of like... He's always like, Yeah, I like it. He's starting to come around on- Is it the haircut you think? The meaner I was, the more he liked me until he then got in office and my Secret Service code game became that mother.

Well, there you go. That's a step up.

That's a step up, right? That was a step up. I'll tell you what you can see in the spin room last night, though, is that it's not hard to know the things that you find out from your sources about how the dial groups went. It's not hard to read the faces. I will tell you, I posted a tweet last night. I took a picture as I was walking out of Matt Gates. What's his name?

Steven Miller? Steven Miller.

Matt Gates, Steven Miller, and the skinniest, most incelly-looking guy in the world who was carrying their little sad sign out in the spin room because they have a little person who carries a sign. If you were in the spin room, they would carry a little sign that would say, Clepper on it. Love it. Or if they wanted to get some attention, it would say, Stuart.

Okay, the goddamn.

And that'd be more-Unbivable. Or Desi.

I'm going to get in. Or Roy Wood.

Or Roy Wood.

Or Roy Wood. There you go. Jordan's having a hard time with that wax there.

It's a hard wax. It's a hard wax. It's a hard wax.

It's a hard… Have you been skimping on the gym sessions lately?

What's going on? I'm waiting till after the election. This will be good later.

But this picture... Now, I'm not going to be able to do it.

Yeah, I was going to say, look at this. Look at this. It's tough.

God, is there no one around here...

This is the ride, though. The bourbon is much easier to open.

Is there no one around here who can help us here? That's really what waxed on. Is it? It's like Miaghi, wax on, wax off. Stay focused. All right, I'm trying.

I got to wrap this up. This ain't a fun podcast.

Gates Miller and this little skinny kid. They look so sad. I saw the various response tweets people would say, an incel, a neo-nazi, and a pedophile walk into a bar. That's the way a lot of great jokes start. Matt Gates was wearing these white sketchers with black jogging pants as his suit bottoms, then a suit jacket on top. I mean, he looked like he was ready for Del Boca Vista, basically, at his age.

Honestly, I think that's a step forward. If he's trying to appeal to the older folks, I think I'll take it with Matt Gates.

But I'll tell you, when I looked at that, I was thinking about what I had thought as I heard about the dial groups from the insiders of the campaign. I thought, David Pluff, David Binder, the focus group pulling Impresario from Obama, who's now working for Harris, they are not champagne-popping types. They're trying to keep... But they were metaphorically popping champagne corks last night and how well they were handed it did. In the Trump world, they were popping either like Malox or Clotipin. I don't know which, but they were not. When those guys showed up and I looked at them, I was like, Those guys are either very, very sad, very, very drugged up, or someone killed their pets. They looked like a bunch of guys who had their cats and dogs taken out by some imaginary Haitians in Ohio.

Yeah, take it from the Sad Man and the Skechers. I think that's how debate went. Be sure to check out John's column at Puck and his podcast, The Politic with John Hylm. I'm going to take a quick break right back after this. It's got to be That's our show for tonight. But before we go, this election season, we are working with Headcount to make sure you and your friends are good to vote. Did you know that your friends are much more likely to vote when the ask comes from you? So if you get three friends to make sure they're good to vote, you could be entered to win a trip to New York City for a backstage experience on the set of The Daily Show. Take action now by texting TDS 2575 568 or by going to the link below. Now, here it is. Your moment is in.

Okay, Michael Steele, you were quite animated when I saw you in the hallway earlier about that debate.

I'm trying to be good.

I'm going to see what you're going to tell me.

You think of the debate that you told me in the hallway.

What was your take on the debate, Michael?

Still, go ahead. What was the key moment? She spanked that ass.

I'm sorry.

That's what she did.

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